By Brick City Slut

The porous space between the self and the other is where intimacy exists. If we are successfully self-contained with impeccable boundaries, we do not allow others to know us. We can absorb and attempt to know the other while concealing ourselves but this is not how to form honest and reciprocal relationships. 

Concealment is power. One way you can avoid figuring out what you require to feel safe being vulnerable is to be the person everyone confides in, who absorbs it all and listens. Maybe if you ask sufficiently incisive questions, you can crack them open while hiding yourself. Maybe if they feel seen, they will forget to look. There is a way in which holding space is abdicating meaningfully showing up, which necessitates reciprocity. Being self contained is a defense mechanism. To be seen requires an element of risk, the chance that someone will not want to see you, or will perceive you wrongly. These are all real risks, but not even giving people the opportunity to attempt to know you is a path that leads to resentment and alienation. 

You long for someone to care, to push past the guardedness. To ask questions and know the depths of you, with tenderness. It is an act of generosity and bravery to allow people to reach towards you. Take my hand, cross the chasm.

The opposite pitfall is to hold and respect the perceived boundaries of others to the point of self-editing into oblivion and never cultivating connection opportunities, being afraid to practice curiosity. We can show care by wanting to know. Never asking and assuming people will tell us what they wish to share is often read as indifference. Asking people about their lives, about their joys, sorrows, and hopes, opens us up to deeper connections. Intrusion is an invitation. You can start small, and build up to greater levels of consensual intrusion, as openness is indicated. Someone has to make the first overture to start building a foundation of reciprocity. You signal openness to connection through practice. Not all invitations will be accepted but an invitation left unspoken will never be answered.

I think one of the reasons people enjoy using social media is that they can feel seen but in a very curated and contained environment. You control the frame in a way that is much less feasible for in-person interactions. Others can see you, but only from afar and only in the ways that feel safe. They don’t see the messy parts and the contradictions. This too is a form of avoidance through the lens of curation. 

One of the (many) pitfalls of people applying instagram infographic therapy culture to their interpersonal relationships is that we take on the role of therapist, untrained, unlicensed, and expect our friends to also be our therapists. The boundaries that therapists have with clients are very different from the ones it is reasonable to hold with a friend. Friendship and romantic relationships involve reciprocity, an exchange of emotional experience. The expectation that we are in the role of either giving or receiving in a constrained manner, without a free flowing dynamic leads to us treating those close to us as service providers rather than intimate relationships. We can get away from this flawed dynamic by not having transactional expectations, by understanding that what is necessary for interpersonal relationships to flourish is not tidiness but bravery. 

I am scared to write this. Every time I try, I share parts of myself. What if I reveal too much? What is the point of writing this? In some ways, it is me from the semi-safe distance of anonymity urging all of us to be braver. To share our hearts with our friends and with our lovers. To settle into connection rather than live alone in fear. 

Brick City Slut lives in Newark. Reach out with questions for advice on Instagram or Twitter @brickcityslut

Featured photo by Pexels